Restoring sand to Venice and Anna Maria beaches

The federal and state government are giving Manatee County and Venice some $32 million to restore their beaches. Work is expected to start this fall. Bradenton Beach, seen here, is part of the six-mile stretch slated for rebuilding on Anna Maria Island.

Published: Tuesday, April 30, 2013 at 6:37 p.m.

Last Modified: Tuesday, April 30, 2013 at 6:37 p.m.

Two of the region's severely eroded beaches are set to get major face-lifts, and local taxpayers will be spared the brunt of the $32 million cost.

The state Legislature this week is poised to approve the final plank of funding to renourish Venice and Anna Maria Island beaches, both ravaged last year by Tropical Storm Debby.

Anna Maria Island is slated for $20 million of restoration work, which involves bringing in tons of sand from offshore and filling in the eroded areas. The federal government has pledged nearly $14 million. Manatee County has set aside $3.175 million. The state will pay $3.175 million.

Venice will get an $11.87 million project; that includes more than $9 million in federal dollars, $1.425 million from the state and a local match of $1.425 million. The project comes just eight years after a $12 million restoration in Venice, much of which has already eroded.

Those projects could just be the start. Sarasota County is working on designs and permitting for a renourishment project for Siesta Key, which also lost sand to Debby, especially at Turtle Beach. Laird Wreford, coastal resource manager for the county, says that project is likely to get approved by the state Legislature next year.

While local officials cheered the projects, some fiscal conservatives questioned why the federal government is spending millions on renourishing beaches at a time when the government is $16.8 trillion in debt.

“There's simply no public purpose for the state of Florida, much less the federal government, to be doing this,” said Eli Lehrer of R Street Institute — a nonpartisan organization in Washington, D.C.

In many cases, “the projects are to protect private homes owned by wealthy people,” Lehrer said. “We build up beaches that nature is going to wash away again.”

President George W. Bush unsuccessfully tried to curtail federal spending on beach nourishment. Yet Congress continues to put up most of the dollars for such projects, which legislators from beachfront states and communities can tout back home.

U.S. Rep. Vern Buchanan, R-Longboat Key, pushed for the latest round of federal funding, saying the work has vast benefits.

“Our white sandy beaches are both economically and environmentally vital to the health of our coastal community,” Buchanan said. “Erosion has been a long-term, persistent problem on Venice Beach and Anna Maria Island, threatening private homes and businesses. I'm pleased that the state Legislature has agreed to move forward with these important projects, as this funding will prevent property damage, save taxpayer dollars following a hurricane and maintain our local treasures for enjoyment today and in the future.”

The R Street Institute, named after a residential street in the nation's capital that intersects with a street of political and lobbyist office buildings, concedes that beach renourishment has an economic benefit for waterfront communities.

Lehrer sees no reason why taxpayers elsewhere in the state and nation who may never see an eroded beach should subsidize its restoration.

Michael Willis — a lobbyist with the firm Marlowe & Co., which has represented Venice and other communities in seeking beach renourishment dollars from Congress — says there is a benefit on the national level to beach renourishment.

Consider the damage the BP oil spill did to beaches and to the taxable incomes of workers who depend on the Gulf for their livelihoods, Willis said. “It greatly impacts the federal government.”

Renourishment projects can be “more preventive than they are recovery,” Willis said. If beaches are restored, when the next storm hits, “the damages will be a whole lot less.”

“The only other solution is to move the cities off the coasts,” which is not economically feasible, Willis said.

Willis says renourishment projects that protect and rebuild beaches are comparable to other taxpayer-funded efforts, such as fighting wildfires or recovering from other natural disasters, that threaten businesses and homes elsewhere in the country.

With their federal taxes, Floridians subsidize such projects in other states.

Here's a closer look at the Anna Maria and Venice projects.

‘Persistence' pays off

“This is a year earlier than we thought it would happen,” Venice Mayor John Holic said. “For the last three years, I've gone to Washington asking to push the funding forward.”

The city's “persistence” evidently paid off, Holic said.

Holic says this year's appropriations should cover beach restoration from the jetty on the northern tip of the island of Venice to the city limits near Caspersen Beach.

For its last restoration project, Venice waited until the end of the turtle nesting season, Holic said.

“We've been setting aside about $250,000 a year in a special account for beach renourishment,” Holic said. The local match comes from property and sales taxes.

That account should now have more than enough to cover Venice's share of the expense, Holic said.

Local beach renourishment projects involve dredging sand from approved locations in the Gulf and using it to replace sand that has eroded from shorelines, rebuilding the buffer that can protect island communities from storm surges.

Because of work done by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to create the Intracoastal Waterway in the 1960s, the sand that would naturally replenish Venice Beach no longer reaches the area. That has led to constant erosion and a $12 million project just eight years ago to restore the beach.

The roughly six-mile stretch designated to be built up with dredged sand is from 78th Street in Holmes Beach south to Longboat Pass. The project will include rebuilding three erosion control groins that have been in disrepair for many years.

Work is expected to begin in September and last about four months.

Because turtle nesting season does not end until October, Manatee's federal and state permits allow for the relocation of the nests “out of the project area,” Hunsicker said.

On the west coast of Florida, sea turtles can create about 20 to 30 nests per mile, Hunsicker said.

The most recent beach renourishment project occurred on Coquina and Cortez beaches, in Bradenton Beach, in 2010. The county and state funded that project, with no federal participation.

Residents such as Ann Maloney are looking forward to the restored beaches. Maloney regularly leaves her home in Cortez, crosses the drawbridge over Anna Maria Sound and completes a brisk, five-mile walk along Cortez and Coquina beaches.

But she said last year's tropical storm took its toll on the view she enjoys.

“The beach isn't quite as pretty as it was,” Maloney said. “We lost much of the pretty white sand.”

Aware that the county relies on attractive beaches to lure tourists, Maloney is pleased to hear another beach nourishment project is forthcoming.

“The economy depends on it,” Maloney said.

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